Educate Together and Travellers

Madam, - Your edition of October 13th carried a report under the headline "No Traveller children enrolled in Educate Together…

Madam, - Your edition of October 13th carried a report under the headline "No Traveller children enrolled in Educate Together Schools". This headline and report are simply incorrect.

Traveller children are welcome in Educate Together schools and there have been Traveller children in Educate Together schools for many years. Their rights of access are guaranteed by our legal charter and the Equal Status Act.

This welcome does not stop at access. Equality of esteem is a core commitment made by our schools and exploring positive images of the Travelling community is part of our ethical curriculum.

The report fails to point out that the Department's statistics are based on returns from schools seeking additional capitation or teaching resources for children of Travellers and depend on the identification of children as Travellers in a school. Like all parts of our society, the Travelling Community is multi-faceted and diverse and it is unscientific to assume that all members of a community are represented in such schemes.

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It is unfortunate that this report masks the real story about our schools in the Dublin region. Last year alone, more than a thousand children were unable to access an Educate Together school and many of our established schools in the region have long waiting-lists.

The answer is to address this shortage of supply. The capital and the country urgently needs more schools operating on the same guarantees of inclusion and equality as are provided in the Educate Together model. This is essential to the future balance of our education system and our ability to meet our constitutional and human rights obligations. It is quite remarkable that the entire burden of this work is left on the shoulders of one small charity operating on a total State grant of €39,800 a year. - Yours, etc.,

PAUL ROWE, Chief Executive, Educate Together, Oak Drive, Dublin 12.